IN preparation for the 2016 national and local elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has been conducting public bidding for the lease of Election Management System (EMS) and Precinct-Based Optical Mark Reader (OMR), or Precint Count Optical Scan (Pcos) System, and for the Lease of EMS and Precinct-Based Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) technology. In other words, the Comelec has been accepting bids for the supply of PCOS-like vote-counting machines and touchscreen voting machines, respectively—both for use in the elections next year.
The fact that the bidding for these equipment started in December of 2014 was seen by some quarters as being indicative of unseemly haste by the Comelec, to say the least. The events of last Thursday, however, proved the wisdom of setting an early start.
On February 25, the Comelec Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) declared a failure of bidding for both OMR and DRE, bringing the entire bidding process to a grinding halt. For the supply of OMR, one of the two bidders submitted a bid in excess of the Approved Budget for the Contract, resulting in the automatic rejection of that bid. The second bidder, on the other hand, submitted what amounted to an incomplete bid. Under the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9184–the Government Procurement Reform Act–an incomplete bid is considered non-responsive, and therefore automatically disqualified. As it happened, the bidder with the unresponsive bid also submitted a bid for DRE–the only one to do so; and as with its bid for the OMR, its DRE bid was incomplete, resulting in its immediate rejection.
The two bidders were given three days to file their motions for reconsideration. This means that each bidder has the opportunity to change the BAC’s mind about their bids. If the BAC finds no reason to revisit its declaration of a failure of bidding however, the rules call for a second round of bidding. Both bidders, of course, remain eligible to participate, but there is a possibility that they might not have the field to themselves any longer.
And just to head off the inevitable speculation and doom-saying, negotiated contracts are not being considered at this point.
What is topmost on the Comelec’s mind is, instead, the impact this failure of bidding will have on its timetables. The award of the contracts for both OMR and DRE were initially scheduled for early March, which presupposed a successfully concluded bidding in the last two weeks of February. With the second bidding looming, these expectations have to be revisited.
The second bidding will be a single-stage affair, which means it will most likely take about two months to complete. Assuming that the challenge—and yes, challenges there will be–to last Thursday’s declaration doesn’t drag on too long, it will probably be safe to assume that the next round of bidding will be called by mid-March. Counting two months from that point lands the Comelec in mid-May, presumably less than a year before the next elections, which are scheduled to take place on the 9th of May, 2016. Realistically, this means that the contracts might be awarded sometime in June. Fortunately, a lot of flexibility has been built into the timetables–thanks in no small part to the early start of the bidding process. Another thing that needs to be appreciated about this whole thing is its scope. Immediately after the announcement of failure was made, some expressed concern about whether elections in 2016 would still be held.
Again, just to head off toxic idle speculation, this turn of events will not result in a return to manual elections or, worse, a no-election scenario. Keep in mind that the bidding in question covered only 24,000 OMR units and 400 DRE voting machines. This equipment is meant for deployment in the National Capital Region for the OMR, and a small pilot area for the DRE.
In the unlikely event that none of these units are actually procured, the Comelec will still be able to use the more than 80,000 Pcos machines that saw action in 2013. The downside to that back-up plan, however, is that it will also require a return to a Pcos-voter ratio of approximately 1:1000–1 Pcos machine for every thousand voters, taking into consideration the expected increase in the number of voters.
The upside is, because the Comelec started the bidding process earlier than it used to, it is seeing all these possible scenarios from a long way off. And as they say, forewarned is most definitely forearmed.
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James Jimenez is the spokesman of the Commission on Elections.